When the TED Talks people came knocking at Vancouver’s door last December
looking for a new home for their signature event, the city’s tourism officials
didn’t just see another small conference on the horizon.

Instead, they viewed the visit as their chance to promote a kind of
intellectual Olympic Games for the next two years, where they could sell
Vancouver to the world via an international elite of thought leaders.

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In return, the organizers of TED – which stands for technology, entertainment
and design and brings together innovators of assorted stripes – saw Vancouver as
a city whose ethos matched that of the TED Talks: future-focused, green,
creative.

“I think the spirit of the city is wonderful for TED. We’ve met so many
people who are dreaming big here,” TED “curator” and owner Chris Anderson said
Monday from New York, where he announced the signature event would move from
Long Beach, Calif., to Vancouver for 2014 and 2015 – and possibly beyond.

For both sides, it was a chance to leverage off each other as they combined
the city with the leaders who frequent the TED Talks. Past speakers have
included former president Bill Clinton, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Google
inventors Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster,
scientist David Keith and many more, ranging from international celebrities to
little-known but creative theorists. All give the 18-minute speeches that have
become a global cultural phenomenon.

The event attracts 1,400 people peryear who pay $7,500 to attend, along with
the hundreds of thousands who have become devotees of TED Talks through their
ubiquitous presence on the Internet, in classrooms, and through spinoff mini-TED
Talks.

“None of us see this as a simple convention coming to town. It’s an
opportunity to tell our own story through TED,” said Greg Klassen, a senior
vice-president with the Canadian Tourism Commission. “We’ve negotiated the
rights to leverage their brand, using the kinds of things we learned from the
Olympics.”

So Vancouver will be able to market itself as the TED host city and Canada as
the TED host country. And tourism planners are looking at ways to spin off other
city events and draw top companies to Vancouver for meetings, using attractions
such asextra speeches from some TED presenters.

They hope the strategy will make Vancouver synonymous with creative thinking,
the way Austin is now the city of independent music as a result of South by
Southwest, and Davos means serious talk about international finance because of
its association with the World Economic Forum.

The Monday announcement caused a visible bubble of euphoria among city
officials. “This is a game-changer for Vancouver. We’re known as a world-class
tourism destination but this shows we’re breaking through in thought
leadership,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said. “I’d like to explore how we can best
leverage the opportunity to vault Vancouver into the spotlight and endear us to
the leading thinkers who come here.”

Since 1990, the main TED Talks annual event has been held in smaller
California cities, first in Monterey and then, after 2009, in Long Beach. Mr.
Anderson, while speaking graciously about Long Beach as a host, said Vancouver’s
natural setting enhances what TED is about.

While his organization had been looking at various locales, Vancouver won
their hearts. The city, where TED staff know several people already, was
welcoming. (The organization, which has its main offices in New York, has had
its conference-organizing staff based in Vancouver for a decade.) The Vancouver
Convention Centre, he said, is “very, very, very beautiful – you feel connected
to nature there. The setting is inspiring.” It’s also central, with hotels and
activities on the doorstep. And, most important, the city “has that combination
of forward-looking innovators and commitment to sustainability” that reflects
TED themes.

The TED talks began in 1984, when architect and urban designer Richard Saul
Wurman brought together leading thinkers in Monterey to discuss new ideas. Mr.
Wurman sold the concept in 2001 for $14-million to Mr. Anderson and the
non-profit Sapling Foundation, which has expanded to create other talk-fests
around the globe.

According to a Financial Times story last fall, Mr. Wurman thinks the TED
concept has become too orchestrated and too slick. Other critics have complained
that the talks have become intellectually pretentious and almost industrialized
in their production. A recent New Yorker article described them as appealing to
“college-educated adults who want to close the gap between academic thought and
the lives they live now.” But that hasn’t made a dint in their phenomenal
popularity, with over 1,200 cities having hosted spinoff TEDx talks.